Hey all, here's some optimism that aligns with my observations (original tweet). The hot new job at tech companies is leading "storytelling." The term doubled on LinkedIn job posts in the U.S since last year. The WSJ writes: "Compliance technology firm Vanta this month began hiring for a head of storytelling, offering a salary of up to $274,000." "Productivity app Notion recently merged its communications, social media and influencer functions into one 10-person, so-called storytelling team." "Financial technology brand Chime last month began hiring for a director of corporate editorial and storytelling—its first storyteller opening." I've worked in sales/marketing for tech startups for 15+ years. (7-8 years as a homepage copywriter.) Before AI, we'd rely heavily on 'features' to differentiate products. Not anymore. You can build features faster and this has eliminated many competitive moats. There is a clear shift toward 'brand' and 'storytelling' to differentiate startups, as they operate in increasingly competitive marketplaces. Storytelling is MUCH harder than it sounds. 'I'm good at telling stories' barely gets your foot in the door. Here's one of my frameworks: What does your market do right now? Why does this suck? How does this suck LOOK (business impact) and FEEL (emotions)? How does your product solve it? What does this new future LOOK and FEEL like? Storytelling combines a range of skills and knowledge bases that span market research, product marketing, strategy and (of course) copywriting skills. You'll typically want to run customer interviews/surveys, interview founders and sales/customer service teams, analyse competitor websites and use Google NotebookLM to look for trends and create tables of customer insights to inform your customer transformation story. In my opinion, copywriting is more important than its ever been. But people want to hire consultants who solve specific business problems, using copy. Categories include: CRO, product marketing and (maybe) storytelling. (My beef with 'storytelling' is that it sounds like a fluffy skill and doesn't begin to suggest the range of research and strategy skills that are required.) Every copywriter that I know who is booked out for months uses AI heavily to accelerate their customer research. Maybe some copywriters are pumping sales without AI, but I haven't met any.) They are also pivoting away from 'copywriter' to new job titles that encompass extra skills. The TL;DR is you should think carefully about how you position your services. I'm working on my new website. I will heavily pivot toward product marketing and storytelling. And I will focus on the process that I have developed to differentiate products. 'Copywriting' is just one of the skills that I'll mention. I hope this is helpful!   submitted by   /u/alexnapierholland [link]   [comments]